Quote from: The Shaman;390767Dude, the professor's character was a half-solar paragon wizard with a weapon of legend and a pokemount.

Total munchkin.

LOL. I was more thinking of Tolkien's overprotective attitude towards his creations, actually.

Quote from: Benoist;390768LOL. I was more thinking of Tolkien's overprotective attitude towards his creations, actually.

That's a fair point. He was a big proponent of strong copyright. While at the same time being a big proponent of the folk process.

I don't like sock puppeting corpses, but my impression is that he would be quite vexed by MERP, but that he would be quite supportive of something like the Forgotten Realms. He was in favor of people exploring fantasy and even using his material in the folk storytelling manner that he got most of his own material - but people literally using his characters seemed to offend him.

-Frank

Quote from: FrankTrollman;390774That's a fair point. He was a big proponent of strong copyright. While at the same time being a big proponent of the folk process.

I don't like sock puppeting corpses, but my impression is that he would be quite vexed by MERP, but that he would be quite supportive of something like the Forgotten Realms. He was in favor of people exploring fantasy and even using his material in the folk storytelling manner that he got most of his own material - but people literally using his characters seemed to offend him.

-Frank

Yes.  Hobbit Happy Meals and Balrog Burgers would be right out.

(as for elves sliding on shields down a set of stairs while shooting arrors, draw your own conclusions)

Quote from: FrankTrollman;390774That's a fair point. He was a big proponent of strong copyright. While at the same time being a big proponent of the folk process.

I don't like sock puppeting corpses, but my impression is that he would be quite vexed by MERP, but that he would be quite supportive of something like the Forgotten Realms. He was in favor of people exploring fantasy and even using his material in the folk storytelling manner that he got most of his own material - but people literally using his characters seemed to offend him.

-Frank

Basically. It ties up to the quote we discussed in the sense he valued the truth of Middle-earth as a Secondary World of imagination. Any misrepresentation of this truth was deeply offensive to his sensibilities*. He was, however, a big proponent of wondrous exploration, renewals of traditional folklores and tales of fantasy in a literary world that was all about pieces of human cynicism too many people worshiped in Shakespeare or various Romantics who often explored the shadiest parts of our psyches with morbid delight. Literature, for Tolkien, was meant to appeal to the angels of our human condition, not its demons.

* Thus, making the new Middle-earth RPG a piece of pure gamism would be missing the entire point of ME role playing, IMO.

Bumping this thread experimentally since we seem to be having some continuing debate over the concept of Dissociated Mechanics. It may or may not be useful.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;564149Bumping this thread experimentally since we seem to be having some continuing debate over the concept of Dissociated Mechanics. It may or may not be useful.

In the "we've already been over this, let's please not have to have this conversation again" type of way, yes, maybe.